Many residential and commercial buildings have electrical power, lights, doors, gates, shutters, awnings, vending and blind mechanisms that can be operated or programmed using buttons, switches or remote controls. In some instances these devices can perform tasks automatically based on the amount of ambient light detected or according to a pre-programmed schedule.
In recent years, the proliferation of smartphones has placed powerful computing devices in the hands of the public. While these devices can generate and transmit wireless control commands, their generic wireless systems are not compatible with the standards currently used in domestic or commercial appliances and mechanisms, so they cannot natively communicate with such in order to transfer programming and/or control commands.
Smartphones typically have an operational life of two years while controllable power, light, door, gate, awning, vending and blind mechanisms usually have an operational life greater than ten years. The rapid turnover of smartphones places pressure on manufacturers to continually improve each successive generation. Smartphones therefore tend to integrate the latest communication technology in order to remain competitive. With no unified standard specifying a generic smartphone communication platform, the communication technology one manufacturer chooses may not be adopted by all manufacturers. Alternately, one manufacturer may choose to add restrictions around their communication capabilities that others do not, or may adopt new technology that is not compatible with previous standards.
It can be appreciated that manufacturers of controllable power, light, door, gate, shutter, fan, awning, vending and blind mechanisms may find it highly advantageous for customers to control their products natively from a smartphone. The problem is that integrating the enabling technology has a cost, which increases as more components are required to address the different communication capabilities across different smartphone operating systems and handset configurations in the market. This is compounded by the fact that the long operational life of power, light, door, gate, awning, vending and blind mechanisms results in a high probability that any embedded communication standard may become obsolete before the end of the operational life of the mechanism.